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Comment Re: Poverty doesn't negatively affect wellbeing? (Score 1) 93

No. Back in the Soviet days, we were all equally poor, except for the few animals who were more equal than the others.

Regular power and water cuts. Party line telephones (in a major city in 1989). Persistent shortages of one kind of foodstuff or another (retirees lining up at the state run dairy store at 5am to get their share before it ran out). Nearly decade-long waiting lists for automobiles and furniture.

We came here when I was 7 in the early 90s. Our first place here was an apartment across the street from a supermarket in Philadelphia. We went a day or two after we settled in and I'd never seen my mothers jaw drop so low when she saw all the food just there for purchase.

But equality!

Comment Re: Papers please! (Score 1) 267

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki...

Biden's day 1 order revoked Trump 1 enhanced enforcement order.

You are correct. This order does not have the words "open borders" in it. It does not de jure open the borders. The executive branch does not have that authority. This order merely reverts to the old honor system of releasing illegal border crossers into the country with a court date years in the future.

But again: playing word games and asserting that de facto open borders is not open borders is not de jure open borders is disingenuous and if you believe your own side's sophistry, that's up to you. I do not. I see de facto open borders, I see 10 million people entering the country in response to that, and I conclude that the Democratic Party is not interested in enforcing the border.

I infer from additional context, including persistent bellyaching among lower level Democrats to defund ICE and pinky swear enforce the laws through other methods; persistent assertions that border enforcement is racist because of the average melanin content and superficial appearance of people on either side of the border; and a persistent undercurrent of left-wing internationalism that rejects as immoral any national borders, that the Democrats are uninterested in enforcing the border because they believe in their bones that to do so is immoral.

And while they are free to hold that belief, it is a deal breaker for me. And it is a large part of the reason I voted for Trump and will continue to vote for the most viable opponent to the Democrat on the ballot. Unless and until the Democrats shed this nonsense from their platform and from their beliefs. The former is pretty easy to do. The latter requires generational turnover.

Comment Re: Papers please! (Score 1) 267

In June 2018, Wisconsin congressman Mark Pocan announced that he would introduce legislation to dismantle ICE and establish a commission to determine how the government "can implement a humane immigration enforcement system",[21] after visiting the Mexicoâ"United States border and witnessing "the nation's immigration crisis".[22] Pocan was joined by Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Adriano Espaillat of New York in introducing the bill, the Establishing a Humane Immigration Enforcement System Act, in July 2018.[15]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Sources cited inline.

Pramila Jayapal and Mark Pocan are still in Congress and influential in their caucus.

Comment Re: Papers please! (Score 1) 267

And oh look: ten million people plus with an incentive to steal social security numbers so they don't technically work under the table:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/1...

Illegal "Dan" in the article also killed someone in a motor vehicle accident and like a good citizen stayed at the scene and gave his stolen identity to responding law enforcement.

It isn't fucking victimless. It's an importation of mass poverty and mass lawlessness. And it is an abdication of the responsibility of the state to its citizens when the party in power does it on purpose, no matter how much warm and fuzzies and John Lennon vibes it gives them.

Comment Re: Papers please! (Score 1) 267

Also outside of NYC and a couple other places who required vaccine cards by law?

Biden tried to require every federal contractor to do it before it was reversed by the courts.

It happened. It was a dumb panicky overreaction that was of at best limited utility at the time it was imposed, it was done only to satisfy a bunch of hypochondriac loudmouths in the Democrat leadership, and it further eroded public confidence in the public health apparatus, to absolutely no one's benefit.

It fucking happened. It was not insignificant.

Comment Re: Papers please! (Score 1) 267

In Massachusetts at least, all those illegals were eligible for free housing paid for by the state. By the time the rules were changed to restrict eligibility to "long-term Massachusetts residents," the emergency shelter system was sucking down about a billion a year out if a state budget of about 50 billion.

They's takin' my shit, in more pithy parlance.

As for breaking laws....again: federal officers enforcing existing federal laws is not breaking laws.

Comment Re: Papers please! (Score 1) 267

I've signed away all sorts of things and have to have so many kinds of physical id cards and security tokens on me as a condition of my chosen employement I just don't give a fuck anymore.

Is it bad that a citizen gets swept up in immigration enforcement? Yes.

Is that a reason to revert to the old honor system approach to immigration enforcement where you get a court date years in advance and pretty please show up and don't steal anyone's social security number between now and then? It is not.

Blue states occasionally declare curfews during a bout of lawbreaking. Is it good in a vacuum? No it is not. But is it understandable in context? Yes it is.

Like I said a few threads back...you really do need to understand the degree to which the open borders of the previous administration, and the entirely predictable entry of nearly ten million mostly illegal immigrants under those policies, *was* an emergency that justified and continues to justify increased enforcement.

Comment Re: Papers please! (Score 1) 267

What is it that you could do during the Biden days that you cannot do now? What rights have you lost that you, your father, and grandfather had that Trump crossed his arms and blinked his eyes and you don't have it anymore?

You can say what you want. Even under your own name. Even if most of us choose anonymity (and have always chosen sone degree of anonymity) to make our private lives a little less complicated.

You can go abroad just like before without needing an exit visa.

You can spend your money how you choose. Associate with whomever you choose. Read whatever you choose.

What rights have you lost?

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